So you may have liked what I just played you or it may have not been your style…. But what if I told you the backstory.

What if I said that By Your Side is an original song I wrote for my best friend sara who confided in me that she was sick with cancer…and that I got a bunch of her friends over to my house one evening when she was sick and I surprised her with this song, and that this song became an anthem for her and her friends during her bout with cancer.

What if I said that my friendship with sara is what inspired me to play music professionally. And that, with this song “By Your Side” as a spark, I was able to raise over $300,000 toward a pediatric cancer research fund I put together…in some ways it’s my friendship with sara that‘s ultimately what brings me here today. Regardless of what you thought about the song, with this type of personal backstory, “By Your Side” takes on quite a different, enhanced meaning. The point is, everything in this world has a backstory, When you know the backstory, it all becomes so much more meaningful. The question becomes, where can I share something personal and meaningful like this online?

We all have inspiring things in our lives …little things in our life that we’ve been inspired to create…maybe not songs, but certainly photos, (slide), poems, barbecues, paintings, or even doodles on the side of your notebook We also discover meaningful things… maybe an uplifting online video, like this wedding dance video that many of you have probably seen, and that went viral with over 20 million views. Or maybe we stumble upon an inspiring website. Behind everything we create and behind everything that we care about, behind everything on all these slides I just showed you, there is a story that adds a layer of meaning, a context, a reason, a Backlight…

At backlight, we have a formula, einsteinian in its simplicity….A media asset or creation can be inspiring…but when you add a backstory or backlight to it, something more emerges….what we at Backlight call a piece of inspiration.

So why do we need Backlight? Right now there is no central place on the web to share and discover this sort of genuine inspiring content. We are a for profit venture that aims to fill this vacuum of inspiration on the internet.

As evidenced by a number of indicators, there is a growing opportunity for a venture like this. First of all, inspirational content is viral. We already showed you an example of inspirational virality with the wedding video earlier. Companies where inspirational content is central have historical viability. For example, Chicken Soup for the Soul is a $1 billion brand, and Causes which you know from Facebook is another example of a for-profit model in this space. Advertisers are constantly looking for brand safe content, which is often hard for them to find, but which we can provide. We also believe that there is a great opportunity here to apply game mechanics to the creation of inspiring content, and build a virtual economy to drive value around that content. There is also an emerging market centered around Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability, where a core focus of consumers in that market is seeking healthier, more meaningful engagement with what they consume. So how does all this play out in the world of social media?

Current trends display an overabundance and meaninglessness of interaction. Current platforms, like Twitter and Facebook, are great for sharing and for identity creation, and they’re obviously ubiquitous. But do they provide a dedicated space for inspiration and meaning? No, their structure does not lend itself toward facilitating these types of meaningful interaction. Backlight is a unique subset of these larger social communities where people go to get inspired on the social graph. Here’s how we facilitate this:

We show people the top inspiring content of the day

We allow you to add your own original creations, of any media type, and their backstories

We provide a bookmarklet that allows you to capture things around the web and add your own layer of meaning to them

We provide you with a personal profile which acts as a collection of your original creations and inspiring discoveries.

To increase participation, we are releasing game mechanics that reward people with badges, and virtual currency, which we are calling “Tokens of Appreciation”.

You can easily import meaningful Facebook photos to Backlight and add your personal backstories to them.

We are currently working with a few universities who have chosen backlight as their official platform for creative student work. It’s being implemented in classrooms and liberal arts departments. They see us as a great way to share and archive all the creative work that students are producing during their time in school. We can turn out content into inspiring greeting cards and gifts. We can use our game mechanics to monetize virtual currency. We can also sell physical and digital copies of our media assets.

Thank you and we’ll see you guys upstairs! We’re actually on the 2nd floor. Have a meaningful and inspired day!

Transcript of "9_Backlight.org_Final"

1.
Intro Slide presented by Brad Wolfe :: brad@backlight.org

2.
By Your Side presented by Brad Wolfe :: brad@backlight.org By Your Side (first verse performance) “ Hey Baby, Don’t you cry tonight I’ll be by your side when the sun comes up Hey Baby, Don’t you worry bout today Tomorrow things will change when the sun comes up I’ll be right here by you, I’ll be right right here by your side”

9.
Positioning Backlight in the Online Ecosystem presented by Brad Wolfe :: brad@backlight.org Positioning Backlight in the Online Ecosystem <ul><li>Current trends online are toward overabundance and meaninglessness of interaction. </li></ul><ul><li>Do the current platforms provide a dedicated space for inspiration and meaning? </li></ul><ul><li>Backlight is a subset of these larger social communities where people go to get inspired on the social graph. </li></ul>